Hope In Christ, Not This World

Church Family: Do you ever wake up in the morning wondering if God loves you or if He still delights in you? Do you doubt if God even really likes you any longer? Has fear flooded your heart with thoughts that you will never be good enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Have you lost passion or given up the fight to live a holy life because you doubt that God even exists? Nothing extinguishes your hope like doubt, anxiety, or fear regarding your relationship to God. We have all had these thoughts during our week, so God has given us great promises to destroy them and replace them with HOPE - an absolute certain expectation of a future good in Christ Jesus.

This is your hope. Your faithful, loving God has powerfully rescued you by His glory through faith. He has made you Holy and has therefore declared that you and Him are at peace. You will never experience His wrath for any sin or unrighteousness. This is the grace of God that you stand and rejoice in (Romans 5:1-2; 12:12). God wants you to know that you are His beloved child and that He cares for you with His perfections forevermore. Jesus came to redeem this world including you. Jesus Christ came to gather you out of this world along with a people for His own possession to proclaim His excellencies (1 Pet. 2:9). As a child of God called out of darkness into His marvelous light you have been placed in His kingdom as you even remain on this earth that waits redemption. You are called with other children of God to be His church, the present form of the kingdom of God, while together we wait for the great event when Christ returns for His people fully establishing His kingdom on the new earth with new heavens. Jesus will return in the same way as the world saw Him go into heaven (Acts 1:11). Every eye will see Jesus when He returns (Rev. 1:7). He will return to judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). He will destroy all His enemies along with the devil, death and hades (Heb. 10:13; Rev. 20). We wait for the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells completely (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21)). When Jesus is least expected to come He will return. It will be a time of great persecution and crisis and yet in the midst of that He will return and set up His eternal kingdom (2 Thes. 1:5-12). In these truths we are told to rejoice in hope!

Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33)! Throughout the New Testament our story is not of a world getting better but of a faithful Savior who has caused us to be born again in the midst of this depraved world to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an heavenly inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, guarded by the power of God Himself (1 Pet. 1:3-9). This is our hope. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, not this world, not wealth, not a political party, not a nation. While you wait for His certain return, you are promised that through great trials of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, will result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ returns, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. This is your hope, your certain expectation – Jesus Christ and His faithful promise keeping love. Rejoice in this hope no matter what happens today.

See you Sunday, rejoicing in hope: Steve